I'm guessing you've tried the Contact Us link at the Bottom of the Webpage? Madman are generally good when dealing with questions. The only person who I think would have more information about it might be Kirben.
You mentioned that remove the "the" didn't work for you, but it seemed to work for me. Oddly adding "the" to any search (unless switching to the option above) seems to result in no results.
If you search for something using the top right search (instead of the new search menu in the middle of the page) while in search results, you'll be searching though status updates instead of what you were previously searching through. Are you doing that by accident?
Same introduction as anyone else, heard about C-W a while back but I never joined and now I'm here. Tastes? Well I keep them to myself. Time will tell.